Bonus
This page contains odd trivia or background facts about the show that don't quite fit anywhere else! ''DCA! ''Trivia Wizard of the Coast's ''digital marketing manager Greg Bilsland was DCA's first producer.1 He approached Jared with the idea of forming a live-streamed show of four internet personalities to play a campaign of 5E D&D run by Dungeon Master Chris Perkins.2 After recommending Holly, Nate and Anna, the five of them proceeded to have their first adventure on 3/15/16, which continued semi-weekly for the part of the first season until a regular weekly schedule was established. The shows were created to be 1hr 45min long,1 but have run longer on occasion. *'Why were their character portraits different for the first season?' ''For the first season, Jared used a fanart portrait of his character from another D&D campaign3. Holly used an early concept picture of Strix that she had drawn herself. Anna and Nate's portrait sources were not revealed, although fans speculated that since Paultin's image had dark hair, it was re-used from another source. Their official group portrait later became the source of the icons used in later seasons.4 '' '' *'How much work does Chris put into these stories?' Per Chris:5'' "I generally have a pretty good idea of where the next week's story is going, so I'm not afraid to present episode titles ahead of time." As for prep work for the episodes, "I try to prepare as little as possible as DM. I usually limit my notes to one sheet of paper per session." In more detail, he explains, "Before each session, I type up a "one-sheet" -- a single sheet of paper that I put in a binder. Written on it is the episode title and date, the list of cast members present for that episode, a list of key NPCs, a very brief summary of what I expect to happen (what I call the "TV Guide sysnopsis), and some notes on what happened previously." He showed off one such sheet on Twitter. The 'previously on' recap is one of his trademark rituals in any campaign, which he credits with "setting the tone for the session" and advises to "keep it short....hit the highlights, and let the players' memories fill in the gaps''6." As for the session itself, when things go unexpectantly, "I roll with the punches. I have the benefit of being able to end a session whenever I want, in case I need more time to think about repercussions." Likewise, "I don't think about how a session will end until about 5 minutes before the end, at which point I'm just looking for a great moment on which to hang or close out the session." In terms of planning for the entire season, "I know roughly how many sessions or episodes are in a "season." I create an episode guide that is constantly being updated to reflect unexpected twists and turns. I do try to anticipate what the players will do, and they surprise me about 50 percent of the time5." *'What does DCA look like behind the scenes?' The players and Chris connect via Zoom.us,7,8 which brings up animage of the four callers on each of their screens, although they will also usually have another window open to see the formatted Twitch output and chat. On the WotC side, the conference feed is edited for A/V mixing, adding the title sequence, applying the overlay with character stats, maps, NPCs and the corner text, and the output is then streamed to Twitch. These duties were initially overseen by Trevor Kidd,9,10'' the former Community Manager at WotC, when DCA was filmed in a small conference room. Over time, WotC began filming their Twitch streams in larger offices (such as 'studio d20') with better recording equipment. Sean Mayovsky (Tech Director) and Pelham Greene (Marketing Coordinator) took over the job of setting up and running the streams, with Pelham now becoming the "corner text guy" in DCA. '' 'References' 1 Chris Perkins AMA #2. DCA Reddit. 2 "Jared Knabenbauer on Dice, Camera, Action and Characters". D&D Beyond. 3 Diath Woodrow (fanart) by Magp1e. DeviantART. 4 https://twitter.com/wizards_dnd/status/923306410536038401 5 Chris Perkins AMA #1. DCA Reddit. 6 Chris Perkins: The Dungeon Master Experience. 2/7/2011 7 DCA Reddit. 8 DCA Reddit. 9 https://twitter.com/The_Trevor_Kidd/status/803735979873996800 and https://twitter.com/The_Trevor_Kidd/status/798710703725023232 10 DCA Reddit.